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Design & Features
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Its
bone-shaped design is certainly out of the norm. Its silver/black
two-tone design looks great and the paint job on this keyboard is of the
highest quality. When you first take it out of the box, you'll quickly
notice its overall high quality build. The keyboard is quite heavy and
much longer than your standard keyboard. But that's certainly a good
thing, as it truly does offer you full-sized keys and lots of comfortable
space to work with. Let's a take a closer look at the board layout...
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Unlike all other illuminated keyboards on the market, the Saitek Eclipse
finally does offer you a standard key layout. All keys are where they
should be and are all nicely spaced out, particularly the location of the
directional and num pad.
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The
included armrest works quite well and while it does attach quite easily, it
does not come loose at all without some effort. What's nice is that it
is also adjustable. You can extend it outwards to your own personal
comfort level. Although I think the keyboard looks better without it
attached, it is certainly much more comfortable to type with it in place
because the keyboard's overall height. Typing on this keyboard was
quite a pleasure. It is fairly quiet and the tactile feel is excellent.
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While
this keyboard does lack a full range of multi-media keys, there are four
silver buttons on the right hand side for volume and light control. This
may be an issue for those who are accustomed to using the buttons excessively
on the keyboard. However, considering I've used quite a few keyboards in
the past with a full set of buttons, I have always ended up using only the
ones for volume. Fortunately, these are available on the Eclipse,
including a mute button. The light control button allows you to not only
turn the backlight off/on, but will let you dim it a bit as well. Just
another one of those features not found on other illuminated keyboards.
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To
compliment its blue backlit keys, the NUM, SCROLL and CAPS lock status LEDs
are blue in color. They are also square shaped and certainly add to its
overall high-tech design.
Low
Light
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Complete Darkness
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Finally, I get the pleasure to review a keyboard that is able to provide the
proper level of illumination in all lighting conditions. You can use
this keyboard in total darkness with ease, thanks to its patent pending
True-Vu keys...
True-Vu Keys
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If
you have played with any other illuminated keyboard, you'll find that the keys
themselves are either imprinted in black or white. The problem with this
is that regardless of whether or not they are illuminated, you can't really
read the letters and/or numbers under complete darkness. That's where
the "true-vu" keys certainly do play a role. The laser-etched clear
characters allow for the light to shine through them, making them completely
visible under any lighting condition. It works well and does finally
serve a purpose.
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